Is there really anything to be upset about that the Netherlands beat the US in the second round of the World Cup by a 3–1 score?
First, off, let’s separate the winning-or-death mentality that dominates our sports landscape from reality: Soccer is a sport with a highly varied set of outcomes every time the whistle blows.
As all-time leading US World Cup scorer Landon Donovan put it when the United States got eliminated in the second round of the 2010 World Cup: “I’m proud of what we did here. Soccer’s a cruel sport.”
The U.S. finished ahead of a couple world powerhouses by making the second round and scored a goal against the Netherlands which isn’t easy to do. The squad was one of only five teams to have no losses through three world cup games. I know this glass-half-full approach doesn’t vibe with American sports fans but welcome to soccer. The upper echelons are already filled by established powers so your odds of making it late in the World Cup if you’re not Brazil, Argentina, Belgium, Germany, England, Spain, Portugal or Holland are never going to be that good.
If anything, it’s humbling and that’s what I love about Soccer. It’s the great equalizer among socio-economic powers: We are the most militarily powerful country in the world and we have been eliminated from the World Cup twice by a Sub-Saharan African country (Ghana in 2006 and 2010) that’s squarely in the third world. There’s nothing more humbling than losing to a country with a GDP per person (average yearly salary) of $2,445.30. And it’s hard to not appreciate such parity even when you’re on the losing end of it.
But even if we did win, so what? Unlike Ghana or the Netherlands, we don’t need World Cup victories to make us feel strong as a country and if we do, then we have some serious inferiority complex issues as the number one economy of the world and the harbinger of democracy for the last 100 years (yes, I know we’ve been slipping as leaders of the World since, ahem, 2016) BUT this American sports exceptionalism mentality has been going on long before that.
What’s more striking is that soccer isn’t even a sport we’re good at. If ticket sales for the Big 4 (Football, Baseball, Hockey, Basketball) are any indication, soccer is fifth in the batting order in a best-case scenario. So how arrogant do we have to expect to do well against other countries who prioritize this sport far higher? Why do we feel the need to win at everything?
I understand the idea of rooting for your country if it appears in a game, but I completely understand why Holland would be likely to beat us in most scenarios and I am nothing but happy for them.
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